This etext was prepared from the 1894 Chapman and Hall "ChristmasStories" edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

THE HOLLY-TREE--THREE BRANCHES

FIRST BRANCH--MYSELF

I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashfulman. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobodyever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This is thesecret which I have never breathed until now.

I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerableplaces I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not calledupon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guiltyof, solely because I am by original constitution and character abashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed withthe object before me.

That object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveriesin the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for manand beast I was once snowed up.

It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from AngelaLeath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discoverythat she preferred my bosom friend. From our school-days I hadfreely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself;and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preferenceto be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under thesecircumstances that I resolved to go to America--on my way to theDevil.

Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, butresolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying myblessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore shouldcarry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World,far beyond recall,--I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, andconsoling myself as I could with the prospect of being generous, Iquietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey Ihave mentioned.

The dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambersfor ever, at five o'clock in the morning. I had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced thatgeneral all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which Ihave usually found inseparable from untimely rising under suchcircumstances.

How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I cameout of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people andother early stragglers, trotting to circulate their almost frozenblood; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops andpublic-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry,frosty rime with which the air was charged (the wind had alreadybeaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steelwhip.

It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year.The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart fromLiverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month,and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this intoconsideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot(which I need not name) on the farther borders of Yorkshire. It wasendeared to me by my having first seen Angela at a farmhouse in thatplace, and my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking awintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain,that, to avoid being sought out before my resolution should havebeen rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I hadwritten to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting thaturgent business, of which she should know all particulars by-and-by--took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days.

There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place therewere stage-coaches; which I occasionally find myself, in common withsome other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybodydreaded as a very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seaton the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet Street was to getinto a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to thePeacock at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But when oneof our Temple watchmen, who carried my portmanteau into Fleet Streetfor me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some dayspast been floating in the river, having closed up in the night, andmade a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, Ibegan to ask myself the question, whether the box-seat would not belikely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness. I washeart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as towish to be frozen to death.

When I got up to the Peacock,--where I found everybody drinking hotpurl, in self-preservation,--I asked if there were an inside seat tospare. I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the onlypassenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the greatinclemency of the weather, since that coach always loadedparticularly well. However, I took a little purl (which I founduncommonly good), and got into the coach. When I was seated, theybuilt me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making arather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey.

It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while,pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished,and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting theirfires; smoke was mounting straight up high into the rarified air;and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground Ihave ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into thecountry, everything seemed to have grown old and gray. The roads,the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks infarmers' yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at road-side inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors wereclose shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires inside, andchildren (even turnpike people have children, and seem to like them)rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their chubbyarms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitarycoach going by. I don't know when the snow begin to set in; but Iknow that we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guardremark, "That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geesepretty hard to-day." Then, indeed, I found the white down fallingfast and thick.

The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out, as a lonely travellerdoes. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking,--particularly after dinner; cold and depressed at all other times. Iwas always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or lessout of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorusAuld Lang Syne, without a moment's intermission. They kept the timeand tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell atthe beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me todeath. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman wentstumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow,and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves without beingany the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it darkenedagain, with two great white casks standing on end. Our horsestumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up,--which was thepleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And it snowed andsnowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. All nightlong we went on in this manner. Thus we came round the clock, uponthe Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by dayagain. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and neverleft off snowing.

I forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where weought to have been; but I know that we were scores of milesbehindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. Thedrift was becoming prodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowedout; the road and the fields were all one; instead of having fencesand hedge-rows to guide us, we went crunching on over an unbrokensurface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any momentand drop us down a whole hillside. Still the coachman and guard--who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking wellabout them--made out the track with astonishing sagacity.

When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like alarge drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended onthe churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we camewithin a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the inn-signs blotted out, it seemed asif the whole place were overgrown with white moss. As to the coach,it was a mere snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran alongbeside us to the town's end, turning our clogged wheels andencouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleakwild solitude to which they at last dismissed us was a snowy Sahara.One would have thought this enough: notwithstanding which, I pledgemy word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and neverleft off snowing.

We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out oftowns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, andsometimes of birds. At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor,a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, witha glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsystate. I found that we were going to change.

They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head becameas white as King Lear's in a single minute, "What Inn is this?"

"The Holly-Tree, sir," said he.

"Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically, to the guard andcoachman, "that I must stop here."

Now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman,to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, ifhe meant to go on. The coachman had already replied, "Yes, he'dtake her through it,"--meaning by Her the coach,--"if so be asGeorge would stand by him." George was the guard, and he hadalready sworn that he would stand by him. So the helpers werealready getting the horses out.

My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not anannouncement without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to theannouncement being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubtwhether, as an innately bashful man, I should have had theconfidence to make it. As it was, it received the approval even ofthe guard and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations of myinclining, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that thegentleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-nighthe would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman beingfroze--ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added bya humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely wellreceived), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body;did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good-night and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself,after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed thelandlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree up-stairs.

I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which theyshowed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that wouldhave absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there werecomplications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that wentwandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I askedfor a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room.

They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought agreat old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose)engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left meroasting whole before an immense fire.

My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase atthe end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is toa bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. Itwas the grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all thefurniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silvercandle-sticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted.Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the windrushed at me like a mad bull; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the firescorched me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece wasvery high, and there was a bad glass--what I may call a wavy glass--above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my anteriorphrenological developments,--and these never look well, in anysubject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with my back tothe fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screeninsisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the draperyof the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and creepingabout, like a nest of gigantic worms.

I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by someother men of similar character in themselves; therefore I amemboldened to mention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at aplace but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I hadfinished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressedupon the waiter in detail my arrangements for departure in themorning. Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses,or, if needful, even four.

Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In casesof nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than everby the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green.What had I to do with Gretna Green? I was not going that way to theDevil, but by the American route, I remarked in my bitterness.

In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowedall night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of thatspot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cutout by labourers from the market-town. When they might cut theirway to the Holly-Tree nobody could tell me.

It was now Christmas-eve. I should have had a dismal Christmas-timeof it anywhere, and consequently that did not so much matter; still,being snowed up was like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargainedfor. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to thelandlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I shouldhave liked it--very much) than I could have asked them to present mewith a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulnessof my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judgeof other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far tooshamefaced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicatemisgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them.

Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of allasked what books there were in the house. The waiter brought me aBook of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-Book,terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-Book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pickle, and the SentimentalJourney. I knew every word of the two last already, but I read themthrough again, then tried to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne wasamong them); went entirely through the jokes,--in which I found afund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all thetoasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. Thelatter had nothing in them but stock advertisements, a meeting abouta county rate, and a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, Icould not make this supply hold out until night; it was exhausted bytea-time. Being then entirely cast upon my own resources, I gotthrough an hour in considering what to do next. Ultimately, it cameinto my head (from which I was anxious by any means to excludeAngela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience ofInns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the fire,moved my chair a little to one side of the screen,--not daring to gofar, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me, I couldhear it growling,--and began.

My first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery; consequentlyI went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself atthe knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and agreen gown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord bythe roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for manyyears, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had beento convert them into pies. For the better devotion of himself tothis branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind thehead of the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie) hadfallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lampin one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, andwould make him into pies; for which purpose he had coppers,underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry inthe dead of the night. Yet even he was not insensible to the stingsof conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard tomutter, "Too much pepper!" which was eventually the cause of hisbeing brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminalthan there started up another of the same period, whose professionwas originally house-breaking; in the pursuit of which art he hadhad his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariouslygetting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom theaquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description,always mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years,this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of acountry Inn; which landlord had this remarkable characteristic, thathe always wore a silk nightcap, and never would on any considerationtake it off. At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the braveand lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, andfound that he had no ear there; upon which she sagaciously perceivedthat he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with theintention of putting her to death. She immediately heated the pokerand terminated his career, for which she was taken to King Georgeupon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on hergreat discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulishpleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmostconfines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her ownexperience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes, or theBleeding Nun. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who wasimmensely rich,--which my father was not; and immensely tall,--whichmy father was not. It was always a point with this Ghoul to presentmy clearest relations and friends to my youthful mind undercircumstances of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law wasriding once through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had nomagnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite andvaluable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himselfbenighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and heasked her if he could have a bed there. She answered yes, and puthis horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there weretwo dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began totalk, saying, "Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!" Upon which one ofthe dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond ofroasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in themorning. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich,tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but he was rather vexed, becausethey had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never alloweddogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour,thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, heheard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was theNewfoundland dog! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, wentstraight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had saidcovered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheetssteeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and thebrother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the twodark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger that long(about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and aspade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, Isuppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror atthis stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within mefor some quarter of an hour.

These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Treehearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny bookwith a folding plate, representing in a central compartment of ovalform the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four cornercompartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name isassociated,--coloured with a hand at once so free and economical,that the bloom of Jonathan's complexion passed without any pauseinto the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into thenext division, became rum in a bottle. Then I remembered how thelandlord was found at the murdered traveller's bedside, with his ownknife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged forthe murder, notwithstanding his protestation that he had indeed comethere to kill the traveller for his saddle-bags, but had beenstricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how theostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had mademyself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood with myback to it as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at thedarkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping inand creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Braveand the Fair Imogene.

There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, whichhad pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took itnext. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where weused to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and betipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign,--the Mitre,--and a bar thatseemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. Iloved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction,--but let thatpass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy littlesister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And thoughshe had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where alltears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet.

"To be continued to-morrow," said I, when I took my candle to go tobed. But my bed took it upon itself to continue the train ofthought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet,to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alightingfrom a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actuallydone some years before, I repeated in my sleep a curious experienceI had really had there. More than a year before I made the journeyin the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very nearand dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away fromhome, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes as still living;sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me;always as being beautiful, placid, and happy, never in associationwith any approach to fear or distress. It was at a lonely Inn in awide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night. When I hadlooked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which themoon was shining, I sat down by my fire to write a letter. I hadalways, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamedevery night of the dear lost one. But in the letter that I wrote Irecorded the circumstance, and added that I felt much interested inproving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful tome, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the belovedfigure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has neverlooked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy,and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctlyin my ears, conversing with it. I entreated it, as it rose above mybed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer mea question I had asked touching the Future Life. My hands werestill outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bellringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep stillness of thenight calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of thedead; it being All Souls' Eve.

To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was freezinghard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfastcleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with thefire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat intwilight, resumed my Inn remembrances.

That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in thedays of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness.It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind thatrattled my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge. Therewas a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preservedDruid I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long whitehair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed tohave been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for thereappearance, on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock ofsheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weirdbelief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehengetwice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one whocounted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centreand said, "I dare!" would behold a tremendous apparition, and bestricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect himto have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He wasout upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimlydiscerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace,what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blownfrom some conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a leandwarf man upon a little pony. Having followed this object for somedistance without gaining on it, and having called to it many timeswithout receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles,when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the lastbustard in Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, andrunning along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in theattempt, he closed with the bustard; but the bustard, who had formeda counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunnedhim, and was last seen making off due west. This weird main, atthat stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker or anenthusiast or a robber; but I awoke one night to find him in thedark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrificvoice. I paid my bill next day, and retired from the county withall possible precipitation.

That was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a littleInn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homelyplace, in a village of one narrow zigzag street, among mountains,and you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and amongthe mules and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great barestaircase to the rooms; which were all of unpainted wood, withoutplastering or papering,--like rough packing-cases. Outside therewas nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with acopper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, andmountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn had disappearedeight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to havehad some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier.He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street fromthe loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done it soquietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard nomovement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said, "Louis,where is Henri?" They looked for him high and low, in vain, andgave him up. Now, outside this Inn, there stood, as there stoodoutside every dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but thestack belonging to the Inn was higher than any of the rest, becausethe Inn was the richest house, and burnt the most fuel. It began tobe noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantamcock, part of the live stock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully outof his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he wouldstay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in dangerof splitting himself. Five weeks went on,--six weeks,--and stillthis terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always onthe top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head.By this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with aviolent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning hewas seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goitre at a little windowin a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a greatoath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, andbring him down dead. Hereupon the woman, with a sudden light in hermind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a goodclimber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen uponthe summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying,"Seize Louis, the murderer! Ring the church bell! Here is thebody!" I saw the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by myfire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled withcords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smokingbreath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, andstared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal,--the dullestanimal in the stables,--with a stupid head, and a lumpish facedevoid of any trace of insensibility, who had been, within theknowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain smallmoneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful modeof putting a possible accuser out of his way. All of which heconfessed next day, like a sulky wretch who couldn't be troubled anymore, now that they had got hold of him, and meant to make an end ofhim. I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn.In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; andI came upon this murderer sitting bound, to a chair, with his eyesbandaged, on a scaffold in a little market-place. In that instant,a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of theblade) swept round him like a gust of wind or fire, and there was nosuch creature in the world. My wonder was, not that he was sosuddenly dispatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within aradius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle.

That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and thehonest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, andwhere one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls,not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoicesin a tiger's hind legs and tail, while the lion puts on a trunk andtusks, and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions ofhimself like a leopard. I made several American friends at thatInn, who all called Mont Blanc Mount Blank,--except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable nature, who became on suchintimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as "Blank;"observing, at breakfast, "Blank looks pretty tall this morning;" orconsiderably doubting in the courtyard in the evening, whether therewarn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make outthe top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start--now!

Once I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where Iwas haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshirepie, like a fort,--an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but thewaiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at everymeal to put the pie on the table. After some days I tried to hint,in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as,for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it;putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; puttingwine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the piebeing invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. Atlast, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of aspectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sinkunder the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it,fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a powerfulorchestra. Human provision could not have foreseen the result--butthe waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of cement,he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoningand fled.

The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overlandexpedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourthwindow. Here I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at mywinter-quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn.

It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners'Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travellingcompanions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd thatwere dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down inthe dark, on a stony morass some miles away; and I had the honour ofleading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady orgentleman, on perusal of the present lines, will take any very tallpost-horse with his traces hanging about his legs, and will conducthim by the bearing-rein into the heart of a country dance of ahundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, andonly then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor's toes. Over and above which, thepost-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, willprobably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a mannerincompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part.With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, Iappeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of theCornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobodycould be received but the post-horse,--though to get rid of thatnoble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I werediscussing how to pass the night and so much of the next day as mustintervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwrightwould be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach,an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unletfloor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch.We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses,where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties.But the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was achair-maker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames,altogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed theevening on perches. Nor was this the absurdest consequence; forwhen we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, heforgot the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared.I myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extricationwas impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a clown in a comicpantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper'slight during the eggs and bacon.

The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. Ibegan to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on until Iwas dug out. I might be a week here,--weeks!

There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an InnI once passed a night at in a picturesque old town on the Welshborder. In a large double-bedded room of this Inn there had been asuicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired travellerslept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bedwas never used, but the other constantly was; the disused bedsteadremaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in itsold state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, thoughnever so entire a stranger, from never so far off, was invariablyobserved to come down in the morning with an impression that hesmelt Laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon the subject ofsuicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certainto make some reference if he conversed with any one. This went onfor years, until it at length induced the landlord to take thedisused bedstead down, and bodily burn it,--bed, hangings, and all.The strange influence (this was the story) now changed to a fainterone, but never changed afterwards. The occupant of that room, withoccasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning,trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. Thelandlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest variouscommonplace subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, wasthe true subject. But the moment the landlord suggested "Poison,"the traveller started, and cried, "Yes!" He never failed to acceptthat suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream.

This reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before me; withthe women in their round hats, and the harpers with their whitebeards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside thedoor while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to theHighland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venisonsteaks, the trout from the loch, the whisky, and perhaps (having thematerials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. Once was I comingsouth from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, hoping to changequickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historicalglen, when these eyes did with mortification see the landlord comeout with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses;which horses were away picking up their own living, and did notheave in sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout,I was taken by quick association to the Anglers' Inns of England (Ihave assisted at innumerable feats of angling by lying in the bottomof the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatestperseverance; which I have generally found to be as effectualtowards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmostscience), and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decoratedbedrooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, andthe green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge; and tothe pearless Emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, whowaited, bless her! with a natural grace that would have convertedBlue-Beard. Casting my eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I nextdiscerned among the glowing coals the pictures of a score or more ofthose wonderful English posting-inns which we are all so sorry tohave lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which weresuch monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion. Hewho would see these houses pining away, let him walk fromBasingstoke, or even Windsor, to London, by way of Hounslow, andmoralise on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust;unsettled labourers and wanderers bivouacking in the outhouses;grass growing in the yards; the rooms, where erst so many hundredbeds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at eighteenpencea week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap offormer days, burning coach-house gates for firewood, having one ofits two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in afight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldogstanding in the doorway. What could I next see in my fire sonaturally as the new railway-house of these times near the dismalcountry station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air anddamp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and nobusiness doing beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in thehall? Then I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty apartmentof four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, theprivilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencinganybody's mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next to the provincial Inns ofFrance, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, thehorse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and theclocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right,unless taken at the precise minute when, by getting exactly twelvehours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away Iwent, next, to the lesser roadside Inns of Italy; where all thedirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in youranteroom; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face insummer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what youcan, and forget what you can't: where I should again like to beboiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of ateapot. So to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in townsand cities of the same bright country; with their massivequadrangular staircases, whence you may look from among clusteringpillars high into the blue vault of heaven; with their statelybanqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths ofghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets thathave no appearance of reality or possibility. So to the closelittle Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants,and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. So to theimmense fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolierbelow, as he skims the corner; the grip of the watery odours on oneparticular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is neverreleased while you stay there); and the great bell of St. Mark'sCathedral tolling midnight. Next I put up for a minute at therestless Inns upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter atwhat hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else's getting up;and where, in the table-d'hote room at the end of the long table(with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all made ofwhite plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely dressed in jewelsand dirt, and having nothing else upon them, will remain all night,clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows, and thegrape that grows, and Rhine wine that beguiles, and Rhine woman thatsmiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother,and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course,to other German Inns, where all the eatables are soddened down tothe same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparitionof hot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, at awfullyunexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beerfrom a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through thewindows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, Iput out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred bedsapiece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen atdinner every day. Again I stood in the bar-rooms thereof, taking myevening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again I listened to myfriend the General,--whom I had known for five minutes, in thecourse of which period he had made me intimate for life with twoMajors, who again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels,who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians,--again, Isay, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely expounding theresources of the establishment, as to gentlemen's morning-room, sir;ladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's evening-room, sir; ladies'evening-room, sir; ladies' and gentlemen's evening reuniting-room,sir; music-room, sir; reading-room, sir; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelvecalendar months from the first clearing off of the old encumbranceson the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. AgainI found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, themore gorgeous, and the more dollarous the establishment was, theless desirable it was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler,julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend theGeneral, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians all;full well knowing that, whatever little motes my beamy eyes may havedescried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted,and great people.

I had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude outof my mind; but here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject.What was I to do? What was to become of me? Into what extremitywas I submissively to sink? Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, Ilooked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled myimprisonment by training it? Even that might be dangerous with aview to the future. I might be so far gone when the road did cometo be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burstinto tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in hisold age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the fivewindows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery.

A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circumstances Ishould have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I heldit fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness whichwithheld me from the landlord's table and the company I might findthere, as to call up the Boots, and ask him to take a chair,--andsomething in a liquid form,--and talk to me? I could, I would, Idid.

SECOND BRANCH--THE BOOTS

Where had he been in his time? he repeated, when I asked him thequestion. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what had he been?Bless you, he had been everything you could mention a'most!

Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he couldassure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come inhis way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell whathe hadn't seen than what he had. Ah! A deal, it would.

What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn't know.He couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen--unless it was a Unicorn, and he see him once at a Fair. Butsupposing a young gentleman not eight year old was to run away witha fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start?Certainly. Then that was a start as he himself had had his blessedeyes on, and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in--and they wasso little that he couldn't get his hand into 'em.

Master Harry Walmers' father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, downaway by Shooter's Hill there, six or seven miles from Lunnon. Hewas a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head upwhen he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrotepoetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced,and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommonproud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn't spoil himneither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye ofhis own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he madequite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to seehim so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired ofhearing him say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songsabout Young May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores theehas left but the name, and that; still he kept the command over thechild, and the child was a child, and it's to be wished more of 'emwas!

How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through being under-gardener. Of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be alwaysabout, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing,and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, withoutgetting acquainted with the ways of the family. Even supposingMaster Harry hadn't come to him one morning early, and said, "Cobbs,how should you spell Norah, if you was asked?" and then begancutting it in print all over the fence.

He couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children beforethat; but really it was pretty to see them two mites a going aboutthe place together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy!Bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked uphis little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if they hadhappened to meet one, and she had been frightened of him. One dayhe stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in thegravel, and says, speaking up, "Cobbs," he says, "I like you." "Doyou, sir? I'm proud to hear it." "Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I likeyou, do you think, Cobbs?" "Don't know, Master Harry, I am sure.""Because Norah likes you, Cobbs." "Indeed, sir? That's verygratifying." "Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better than millions of thebrightest diamonds to be liked by Norah." "Certainly, sir.""You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?" "Yes, sir." "Would you likeanother situation, Cobbs?" "Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if itwas a good Inn." "Then, Cobbs," says he, "you shall be our HeadGardener when we are married." And he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away.

Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal toa play, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair,their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a ramblingabout the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birdsbelieved they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please'em. Sometimes they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sitthere with their arms round one another's necks, and their softcheeks touching, a reading about the Prince and the Dragon, and thegood and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. Sometimes hewould hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keepingbees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once he cameupon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, "Adorable Norah,kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I'll jump in head-foremost." And Boots made no question he would have done it if shehadn't complied. On the whole, Boots said it had a tendency to makehim feel as if he was in love himself--only he didn't exactly knowwho with.

"Cobbs," said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering theflowers, "I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to mygrandmamma's at York."

"Are you indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I amgoing into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here."

"Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?"

"No, sir. I haven't got such a thing."

"Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?"

"No, sir."

The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while,and then said, "I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs,--Norah'sgoing."

"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you'regoing to live with us.--Cobbs!"

"Sir."

"What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there?"

"I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir."

"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs."

"Whew!" says Cobbs, "that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry."

"A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that,--couldn't a person, Cobbs?"

"I believe you, sir!"

"Cobbs," said the boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house,they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at ourbeing engaged,--pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!"

"Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur."

The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minuteswith his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with,"Good-night, Cobbs. I'm going in."

If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a-going to leavethat place just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightlyanswer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now if hehad been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger then, andhe wanted change. That's what he wanted,--change. Mr. Walmers, hesaid to him when he gave him notice of his intentions to leave,"Cobbs," he says, "have you anythink to complain of? I make theinquiry because if I find that any of my people really has anythinkto complain of, I wish to make it right if I can." "No, sir." saysCobbs; "thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as Icould hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I'm a-going toseek my fortun'." "O, indeed, Cobbs!" he says; "I hope you may findit." And Boots could assure me--which he did, touching his hairwith his bootjack, as a salute in the way of his present calling--that he hadn't found it yet.

Well, sir! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and MasterHarry, he went down to the old lady's at York, which old lady wouldhave given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had hadany), she was so wrapped up in him. What does that Infant do,--forInfant you may call him and be within the mark,--but cut away fromthat old lady's with his Norah, on a expedition to go to GretnaGreen and be married!

Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left itseveral times since to better himself, but always come back throughone thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drivesup, and out of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says toour Governor, "I don't quite make out these little passengers, butthe young gentleman's words was, that they was to be brought here."The young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guardsomething for himself; says to our Governor, "We're to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required.Chops and cherry-pudding for two!" and tucks her, in her sky-bluemantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder thanBrass.

Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishmentwas, when these two tiny creatures all alone by themselves wasmarched into the Angel,--much more so, when he, who had seen themwithout their seeing him, give the Governor his views of theexpedition they was upon. "Cobbs," says the Governor, "if this isso, I must set off myself to York, and quiet their friends' minds.In which case you must keep your eye upon 'em, and humour 'em, tillI come back. But before I take these measures, Cobbs, I should wishyou to find from themselves whether your opinion is correct." "Sir,to you," says Cobbs, "that shall be done directly."

So Boots goes up-stairs to the Angel, and there he finds MasterHarry on a e-normous sofa,--immense at any time, but looking likethe Great Bed of Ware, compared with him,--a drying the eyes of MissNorah with his pocket-hankecher. Their little legs was entirely offthe ground, of course, and it really is not possible for Boots toexpress to me how small them children looked.

"It's Cobbs! It's Cobbs!" cries Master Harry, and comes running tohim, and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to himon t'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they bothjump for joy.

"I see you a getting out, sir," says Cobbs. "I thought it was you.I thought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. What'sthe object of your journey, sir?--Matrimonial?"

"We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green," returned theboy. "We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather lowspirits, Cobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be ourfriend."

If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour uponit, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and ahalf of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush,--seemingly a doll's. The gentleman had got about half adozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug withhis name upon it.

"What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?" says Cobbs.

"To go on," replied the boy,--which the courage of that boy wassomething wonderful!--"in the morning, and be married to-morrow."

When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out,"Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!"

"Well, sir," says Cobbs. "If you will excuse my having the freedomto give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I'macquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I couldborrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, (myselfdriving, if you approved,) to the end of your journey in a veryshort space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that this ponywill be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the smallaccount here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at allshort, that don't signify; because I'm a part proprietor of thisinn, and it could stand over."

Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped forjoy again, and called him "Good Cobbs!" and "Dear Cobbs!" and bentacross him to kiss one another in the delight of their confidinghearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em thatever was born.

"Is there anything you want just at present, sir?" says Cobbs,mortally ashamed of himself.

"We should like some cakes after dinner," answered Master Harry,folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him,"and two apples,--and jam. With dinner we should like to havetoast-and-water. But Norah has always been accustomed to half aglass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I."

"It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs; and away he went.

Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speakingas he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds with the Governor than have combined with him; and thathe wished with all his heart there was any impossible place wherethose two babies could make an impossible marriage, and liveimpossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn't be, hewent into the Governor's plans, and the Governor set off for York inhalf an hour.

The way in which the women of that house--without exception--everyone of 'em--married and single--took to that boy when they heard thestory, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do tokeep 'em from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbedup all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at himthrough a pane of glass. They was seven deep at the keyhole. Theywas out of their minds about him and his bold spirit.

In the evening, Boots went into the room to see how the runawaycouple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat,supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, andwas lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon hisshoulder.

"Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?" says Cobbs.

"Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home,and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think youcould bring a biffin, please?"

"I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. "What was it you--?"

"I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fondof them."

Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and when hebrought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her witha spoon, and took a little himself; the lady being heavy with sleep,and rather cross. "What should you think, sir," says Cobbs, "of achamber candlestick?" The gentleman approved; the chambermaid wentfirst, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle,followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentlemanembraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, whereBoots softly locked him up.

Boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a basedeceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they hadordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, over-night) about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, hedon't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in theface, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up tobe. Howsomever, he went on a lying like a Trojan about the pony.He told 'em that it did so unfortunately happen that the pony washalf clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be taken out in thatstate, for fear it should strike to his inside. But that he'd befinished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrowmorning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots's viewof the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs.Harry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn't had herhair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up tobrushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her out. Butnothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, atearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father.

After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawedsoldiers,--at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harryrang the bell,--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said, in a sprightly way, "Cobbs, is there any good walks inthis neighbourhood?"

"Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love Lane."

"Get out with you, Cobbs!"--that was that there boy's expression,--"you're joking."

"Begging your pardon, sir," says Cobbs, "there really is Love Lane.And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it toyourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior."

Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, whenthat young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together,that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas ayear as head-gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to'em. Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth wouldhave opened and swallowed him up, he felt so mean, with theirbeaming eyes a looking at him, and believing him. Well, sir, heturned the conversation as well as he could, and he took 'em downLove Lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would havedrowned himself in half a moment more, a getting out a water-lilyfor her,--but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was tiredout. All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as tiredcould be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like thechildren in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.

Boots don't know--perhaps I do,--but never mind, it don't signifyeither way--why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself to seethem two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day,not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep as they done whenthey was awake. But, Lord! when you come to think of yourself, youknow, and what a game you have been up to ever since you was in yourown cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it'salways either Yesterday with you, or else To-morrow, and never To-day, that's where it is!

Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was gettingpretty clear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior's,temper was on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist,she said he "teased her so;" and when he says, "Norah, my young MayMoon, your Harry tease you?" she tells him, "Yes; and I want to gohome!"

A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs.Walmers up a little; but Boots could have wished, he must privatelyown to me, to have seen her more sensible of the woice of love, andless abandoning of herself to currants. However, Master Harry, hekept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmersturned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. Therefore, Mrs.Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and Master Harry dittorepeated.

About eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor in a chaise,along with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amusedand very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, "We are muchindebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children,which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray, ma'am, where ismy boy?" Our missis says, "Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir.Cobbs, show Forty!" Then he says to Cobbs, "Ah, Cobbs, I am glad tosee you! I understood you was here!" And Cobbs says, "Yes, sir.Your most obedient, sir."

I may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps; but Boots assuresme that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. "I beg yourpardon, sir," says he, while unlocking the door; "I hope you are notangry with Master Harry. For Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, andwill do you credit and honour." And Boots signifies to me, that, ifthe fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state ofmind in which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him acrack," and taken the consequences.

Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go upto the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face.Then he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully likeit (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gentlyshakes the little shoulder.

"Harry, my dear boy! Harry!"

Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs too. Suchis the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whetherhe has brought him into trouble.

"I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself andcome home."

"Yes, pa."

Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swellwhen he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as hestands, at last, a looking at his father: his father standing alooking at him, the quiet image of him.

"Please may I"--the spirit of that little creatur, and the way hekept his rising tears down!--"please, dear pa--may I--kiss Norahbefore I go?"

"You may, my child."

So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way withthe candle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the elderlylady is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers,Junior, is fast asleep. There the father lifts the child up to thepillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by thelittle warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers,Junior, and gently draws it to him,--a sight so touching to thechambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of themcalls out, "It's a shame to part 'em!" But this chambermaid wasalways, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there wasany harm in that girl. Far from it.

Finally, Boots says, that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away inthe chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly ladyand Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, that was never to be (she married aCaptain long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. Inconclusion, Boots put it to me whether I hold with him in twoopinions: firstly, that there are not many couples on their way tobe married who are half as innocent of guile as those two children;secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great manycouples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped intime, and brought back separately.

THIRD BRANCH--THE BILL

I had been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so lightly onmy hands, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but fora piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table.

The road had been dug out of the snow on the previous day, and thedocument in question was my bill. It testified emphatically to myhaving eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among thesheltering branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights.

I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improveitself, finding that I required that additional margin of time forthe completion of my task. I had ordered my Bill to be upon thetable, and a chaise to be at the door, "at eight o'clock to-morrowevening." It was eight o'clock to-morrow evening when I buckled upmy travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, andgot on my warm coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now remainedfor my travelling on to add a frozen tear to the icicles which weredoubtless hanging plentifully about the farmhouse where I had firstseen Angela. What I had to do was to get across to Liverpool by theshortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. Itwas quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time to do itin.

I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends--almost, for the timebeing, of my bashfulness too--and was standing for half a minute atthe Inn door watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cordwhich tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps comingdown towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so padded with snow thatno wheels were audible; but all of us who were standing at the Inndoor saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between thewalls of snow that had been heaped up on either side of the track.The chambermaid instantly divined how the case stood, and called tothe ostler, "Tom, this is a Gretna job!" The ostler, knowing thather sex instinctively scented a marriage, or anything in thatdirection, rushed up the yard bawling, "Next four out!" and in amoment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion.

I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved andwas beloved; and therefore, instead of driving off at once, Iremained at the Inn door when the fugitives drove up. A bright-eyedfellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almostoverthrew me. He turned to apologise, and, by heaven, it was Edwin!

"Charley!" said he, recoiling. "Gracious powers, what do you dohere?"

"Edwin," said I, recoiling, "gracious powers, what do you do here?"I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze oflight seemed to shoot before my eyes.

He hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow firein it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horseswere putting to, and, shutting the door, said:

"Charley, forgive me!"

"Edwin!" I returned. "Was this well? When I loved her so dearly!When I had garnered up my heart so long!" I could say no more.

He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruelobservation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so muchto heart.

I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him."My dear, dear Charley," said he, "don't think ill of me, I beseechyou! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believeme, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secrecy. Its meannessis intolerable to me. But I and my dear girl have observed it foryour sake."

He and his dear girl! It steeled me.

"You have observed it for my sake, sir?" said I, wondering how hisfrank face could face it out so.

"Yes!--and Angela's," said he.

I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like alabouring, humming-top. "Explain yourself," said I, holding on byone hand to an arm-chair.

"Dear old darling Charley!" returned Edwin, in his cordial manner,"consider! When you were going on so happily with Angela, whyshould I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a partyto our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to oursecret intention? Surely it was better that you should be ablehonourably to say, 'He never took counsel with me, never told me,never breathed a word of it.' If Angela suspected it, and showed meall the favour and support she could--God bless her for a preciouscreature and a priceless wife!--I couldn't help that. Neither I norEmmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And for the samegood reason, Charley; trust me, for the same good reason, and noother upon earth!"

Emmeline was Angela's cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought upwith her. Was her father's ward. Had property.

"Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!" said I, embracing himwith the greatest affection.

"My good fellow!" said he, "do you suppose I should be going toGretna Green without her?"

I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline inmy arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft whitefur, like the snowy landscape: but was warm, and young, and lovely.I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note apiece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove theother way myself as hard as I could pelt.

I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straightback to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this time,even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrustand the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they,and our eight children and their seven--I mean Edwin and Emmeline's,whose oldest girl is old enough now to wear white for herself, andto look very like her mother in it--come to read these pages, as ofcourse they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last.Never mind! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by idleaccident, to associate the Christmas time of year with humaninterest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the livesof those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am nonethe worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worsefor it. And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking itsroots deep into our English ground, and having its germinatingqualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!